FAIR AT HOME ~ Day 1

Well, here we are! What was supposed to be Opening Day of the 152-year-old Clark County Fair. But for only the second time in its history (the first was in 1942 during World War II), the Fine Fair Folks wisely decided to cancel this year’s fair.

It breaks my heart. But masks and social distancing would seriously cramp the style of even the most fair-weather Fair Fan. It would be really difficult and super depressing to Fair without being able to see anyone smile.

So today was the first day of my very best attempt to Fair At Home. And honestly, I am definitely feeling Fair-ish! YAY!!

I tried to do as many First Day of Fair things as I could. I carefully selected my Fair-themed t-shirt and earrings. I charged up my camera’s batteries and my cell phone. I wore a baseball hat for the first time in months. I planned my day around food. I hung my special parking tag on my rear view mirror. I took a lot of photos. I chatted with a number of friends (albeit online). And my stomach is scolding me about inflicting it with perhaps a bit too much grease and fat.

WHOO HOO!! Fair Day 1 done right!

I'm honestly pretty stoked about how well this turned out!
Both of our cars have them, because it's not The Fair
without a rectangle of brightly colored
cardstock hanging from the rear view mirror!

The Mysteries of Pig Tapping - Solved!
Since I can’t hang out in the bleachers watching 4-H kids show their animals in the show ring, I decided a good substitute would be harnessing the wonders of Zoom. Zoom – the teleconferencing app I had never heard of until mid-March that has now become a lifeline to friends, family, Youth Group teens, and…blessedly…FAIR KIDS!

This morning I spent a fabulous 15 minutes chatting through screens with my cousin TJ in Montana. He is 13 years old and has been a 4-H Pig Kid for five years. Testing my technology prowess, I am relieved to say I managed to record the Zoom call and get it uploaded to a brand-new YouTube channel this afternoon!  Click here to check it out!!

I also got to chat with TJ’s mom for a bit after the recording ended. It was SO fantastic to see both of them in their beautiful Montana setting, TJ chasing his pig (named Seattle; brother Vancouver was in his pen) around the yard, and Mom trying to capture the moment on her phone.

By the end of our chat, I told Maddie that I learned more about pigs and my most favorite pig tapping in the half-hour I spent Zooming with them than I had in over a decade of Fairgoing. What a difference it makes to be able to ask questions in the moment!

Amongst the nuggets I learned is that the best market pigs are ones that have just the right amount of fat on them. Too much muscle is just as bad as too much fat. And the best way to judge the ratio is to watch the pig walk. A longer stride is preferred; tiny little piggy steps means there’s too much tight muscle and not enough marbling. But a tummy that wiggles and jiggles all over the show ring isn’t ideal either.

Since watching how a pig moves is how a judge determines its meat quality, the smart 4-H kids are the ones that keep their swine on the move. All these years watching pig shows, I thought the kids couldn’t control their pigs or keep them still and were being marked down for constantly chasing after them!

TJ also taught me that pig tapping really does serve a purpose. A tap on the back of the feet tells them to keep walking. A glint of the tapper in the peripheral vision will lead a trained pig to walk away from it. So tapping quickly on either side of the pig…like I have seen so many kids do…can actually tell the pig to walk in a straight-ish line. Of course, not all pigs are well-trained, so the effectiveness of the tappity taps varies by how much tapping and walking time the 4-H kid has invested.

How cool is that!?! All this time, I thought the pig show ring was chaos run amok. Instead, it’s organized and intentional pig struttin’ and tappin’ to help the judge decide which one would be the tastiest.

TJ told me that his pigs are going to be auctioned tomorrow. Today was the last full day he got to spend with Seattle and Vancouver. Although I detected some sadness, I also sensed that real-world understanding of what raising an animal for market fully entails. Another reason I am so impressed with the 4-H program; such life lessons learned and understood at such a young age. Not to mention all the exceptionally fresh bacon. Mmmm.

Seattle the Pig

Thankful for a Hot Tub Show
It just didn’t feel right spending the first day of the Fair entirely at Woodhaven. Even if all we could do is stare at the Big Air Conditioned Building from the street, it seemed absolutely essential to pay some sort of homage to the Clark County Fairgrounds today.

We headed over at about 5:00pm. There were a few cars in the parking lot and signs pointing to a Hot Tub and Spa Show in the Big Air Conditioned Building. Although we had no interest in the show, it meant that part of the Fairgrounds was open.

YIPPEEE!

It's a beautiful day for a Fair!

We were able to walk as far as the Llama Greenway and were able to sneak around a fence (which I’m sure will be back in place tomorrow) to go sit in Our Spot in the Grandstands. We walked through the Food Court, dodging the two cars parked in it and a large garden hose tangled up in the middle. All the animal barns were secured and all the asphalt typically covered with chairs and vendors and rides and food tents and sneakers was bare and lonely.

As we walked around (for almost a mile!), I listened for the laughter and loudspeakers and moos and adolescent screams from the midway. They were soft, but I did hear them and it did my heart so good.

Echo......echo....echo.....

FAIR AT HOME STATS!

I typically keep track of assorted oddities during Fair. How far I walked, how many friends I saw, my daily earrings, the nightly re-entry handstamp animal, how many Amazing Yellow Brooms were proudly toted around from the compelling sales pitch in the commercial building, etc.

Clearly, some stats just won’t exist this year. But determined to Fair as properly as possible, this year I give you:

Today’s t-shirt: I have slowly amassed a suitable collection of Fair-oriented t-shirts. I shall wear them proudly all week with hopes that when I go out in public, people are inspired to ask me about them. Or at least smile. I fondly remember wearing today’s cow shirt at the Wisconsin Fair last year while stuffing my face full of cream puff. Good times!!

Yes, technically it's Fair Ten Days but that's not as catchy

Today’s earrings: Thanks to Etsy and Visa, I finally have a full Fair’s worth of fun earrings! Today, in honor of my Zoom call with TJ, I sported the adorable pig earrings.

Today’s hand sticker: Yes, I know, I can re-enter Woodhaven for free anytime I want. Nevertheless, I believe nothing says FUN EVENT ATTENDANCE better than a hand-stamp. So, thanks to Dollar Tree, I have 10 food-oriented stickers from which I will randomly draw one each day. I will attempt to wear it on the top of my hand all day. I started off today thinking it would be a Shoulder Sticker, but that just felt weird. So I moved it back to my hand. Because wearing a 3-D sticker of a jelly jar with a boom box doesn’t feel weird at all.

Does anyone say "This is my jam" anymore when talking about
music?  

Time today’s hand sticker finally bit it: Approximately 8:30pm

Number of steps walked: Due to a foot surgery in early May, I am not yet up to walking multiple miles in a day. So, in an effort to delude myself into thinking I am working off lots of Fair Feasting calories, this year I will be counting the number of steps instead of the number of miles. Today’s steppage was 3,993 steps. That’s a much bigger number than 1.6 miles!

Unfair food consumed: I’m not going to bother including photos of food I eat in my real, non-Fair life. That’s boring. But I also know I am not going to be eating only Fair Food for the next 9 days because, let’s face it, I hate cooking and that would be waaaaay too much work. So, in addition to the Fair Feast Treats, I will report the “normal” food I ate. Today, I skipped breakfast and then had Pad Thai from a favorite local takeout for dinner.


FAIR FOOD FEAST TREATS!

Typically, I eat myself silly each and every day of the Fair. There are no limits and no rules. I embrace gluttony without shame. And I document it with photos, photos of me stuffing my face with all the glorious calories and fat grams. So many photos each day, it constitutes a Parade. A Fair Food Feast Parade.

This year, I will absolutely be eating Fair Food! But it won’t be the same daily quantity. Because, again, I hate to cook. So instead of a Parade, I will share the Fair Food Treats I find or make each day. And I am absolutely open to suggestions for recipes and Portland-metro take-outs and goodies to dip in my new deep fryer.

Today featured two treats: Tater Tot Nachos and Homemade Deep Fried Oreos!


Tater Tot Nachos
The original recipe (found online) was for Waffle Fries instead of Tater Tots. We had some awesome Tater Tot Nachos in Wisconsin last year, so I was hoping that with a few modifications we would get to revisit that delicacy. Sadly, not so much.

I baked the Tater Tots in the oven and then put them in a casserole dish. I topped them with a diced tomato, a can of olives, 3 sliced green onions, 3 cups of cheese, a cup of salsa, a handful of jalapenos, and 1 diced cooked hot dog (the recipe called for bacon but I never cook bacon so that seemed like a lot of work). Baked for another 5 minutes and then topped with sour cream.

I was following the recipe literally.  In retrospect, I think I should
have put the cheese on the tots first.

Verdict: It was cheesy and a bit messy but it didn’t taste bad. It just needed some oomph. Like maybe more salsa. Or more jalapenos. Or Cajun tots instead of regular ones. Or taco meat instead of the hot dog. Rob and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how we could make this creation more interesting. We eventually realized we were working waaaay too hard and decided to ditch both the remaining tots as well as the recipe. I did indulge in licking clean the spoon full of sour cream, though. Because FAIR!

Mmmm, camera's Food setting...

Taken during the brief moments of my
ill-advised Shoulder Sticker idea

Deep Fried Oreos
Our first time deep frying ANYTHING at home! And it was a success!

Rob thankfully took charge of the operation since we are both a bit tired of construction projects at Woodhaven and really didn’t need me burning down the kitchen this week.

Taking all the precautions, Rob set the new mini-fryer on a metal table on a slab of concrete at least 10 feet from our house. Did I mention we’ve never deep fried anything?

Rob poured about half a bottle of Wesson oil into the fryer, making me gasp and making a mental note to buy more bottles ASAP. While it heated up, Rob mixed up the batter using a recipe involving milk, egg, Bisquik, and yet more oil.

We decided our first fry baby should be something we are familiar with, something we know how it should taste and therefore allow for easy evaluation. So naturally, Oreos were the first in the fryer. Double Stuff because we’re doing the shopping.

All the precautions were taken.  Including keeping me away
from the fryer and behind the camera instead.

Once the oil was ready, Rob simply rolled the Oreos around in the batter and then dropped them in the adorable little fry basket that came with the fryer. About 5 minutes later, they were on our plate with taste buds ready.

Don't they look beautiful!  Rob did a
fantastic job on his first fry try!

Verdict: WOW! I might even like these better than the ones at the Fair! The batter on ours was not very thick, which is why I liked it better. The ratio of cookie-to-batter swung strongly in favor of the cookie. The batter was crisp but not crunchy and the Oreo was soft and warm and chewy. I only had two but I could have seriously inhaled an entire row’s worth.

Rob wants to experiment with trying to make the dough a little thicker; we’re thinking maybe if we got it colder before dipping?

The great news is, we have lots of batter and lots of treats and 9 more days to perfect this dangerous new discovery. Mmmmm!

Yep, this fryer thing was a good purchase.